The Election Commission of India on Monday rescheduled assembly by-elections to 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala from November 13 to November 20, giving into political parties’ request to change polling date due to festivals.

Now the by-elections to all the 9 assembly seats, in UP, 4 in Punjab and 1 in Kerala will be held on November 20, the EC said on Monday. In Kerala, the by-election to Palakkad assembly seat has been only rescheduled while that for Chelakkara assembly and Wayanad Lok Sabha seats will be held as per the scheduled announced earlier by the Election Commission on November 13.

On October 15, the ECI had announced by-election to 48 assemblies constituencies and 2 parliamentary seats of 15 States. The date of poll for all by-elections, except in Nanded Lok Sabha seat of Maharashtra and Kedarnath assembly segment of Uttarakhand, was fixed for November 13.

The ECI said it received representations from various political parties, including BJP, Congress, BSP, and RLD, and some social organisations for change of date of poll in some assembly constituencies having by-elections on November 13, considering large scale social, cultural and religious engagements on that day.

The Congress had said that a significant portion of the electorate in the Palakkad assembly seat will celebrate the festival of Kalpathi Rastholsavam from November 13 to 15, so the polling should be shifted to a latter date.

Similarly, the lead opposition party stated that in Punjab, the 555th Prakash Parv of Sri Guru Nanak Dev will be celebrated on November 15 and an ‘akhand path’ will be organised from November 13 onwards.

The date for UP was changed because the BJP, BSP and RLD said that people travel for three-four days ahead of Kartik Purnima, which is on November 15.

These may cause inconvenience to large number of people, give rise to various logistic issues and may lead to reduced voters participation during the poll, the political parties said in their representation to the ECI.

The Commission, having considered these factors and representations, decided to change the date of poll. As per the EC, the counting and completion of poll process with respect to above election are November 23 and November 25 respectively.

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